CONFIDENTIAL
VISIT OF MINISTER OF STATE
(LORD SHPEHERD
TO HONG KONG MAY/JUNE 1969
Note No. 15
CIVIL SERVICE
The Minister should be aware of the following matters
relating to the Civil Service in Hong Kong. None of them need be raised by the Minister, but these notes are supplied in case the initiative is taken in Hong Kong to mer.tion them to him.
Staff Relations
2. The principal difficulties in the Hong Kong Government's
relations with its staff have centred on :
3.
(a) Lack of formal consultative machinery.
(b)
In the case of expatriate officers, the "fringe benefits" (i.e. children's passages, educational allowances) as compared with those given to members
of the Diplomatic Service, UK officers serving overseas
and HMOCS officers under 0.S.A.S.
(a) has largely been met by the establishment last year of a
Senior Civil Service Council. We have not had any reports as to how this is functioning; it is a little early to ask for them.
4.
The difficulties on (b) stem, on the one hand, from the fact
that Hong Kong expatriates feel, when they look around at the
fringe benefits enjoyed by HMOCS in other territories and by UK
officers serving in Hong Kong that they are a deprived and neglected lot; and, on the other from the attitude of Chinese
unofficial members of Councils and of Chinese officers in the
Hong Kong service who oppose the principle of additional
remuneration for expatriates. On the face of it there is some
justification for the expatriate officers' sense of grievance;
their fringe benefits compare unfavourably with those enjoyed
by the officers referred to in (b).
5. The ODM have not been very sympathetic. They consider Hong Kong salaries to be high (and generous) compensating for lower fringe benefits. They do not feel that the political difficulties
CONFIDENTIAL
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